Category Archives: black lives matter

A Baltimore police officer has resigned following a viral video of him repeatedly punching a man identified as 26-year-old DaShawn McGrier.

According to reports, McGrier was moving to leave after police pulled up to where he was hanging out and he noticed an officer that he had a history with and didn’t want any trouble. McGrier was arrested in June for allegedly assaulting the unnamed officer, and his trial was scheduled for later this month. This time around, it was McGrier who was assaulted.

The officer reportedly asked McGrier for his identification and when he refused, the officer hit McGrier repeatedly and pinned him to the ground. McGrier’s attorney Warren Brown said he sustained a “Fractured jaw, two fractured ribs, he lost feeling in his left leg,” in the incident. He has since regained feeling in his leg.

According to Baltimore Police, McGrier was taken into custody and received medical treatment, and he was released without any charges. The unnamed officer was suspended during an investigation of the incident, and the officer later resigned.

Interim Baltimore Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle released a statement, which read, “While I have an expectation that officers are out of their cars, on foot, and engaging citizens, I expect that it will be done professionally and constitutionally. I have zero tolerance for behavior like I witnessed on the video today. Officers have a responsibility and duty to control their emotions in the most stressful of situations.”

Brown is planning to take action against the officer and the Baltimore Police Department.

Police say they will not charge a Florida man for killing another man in a parking lot after an argument over a parking spot. Surveillance video shows Michael Drejka shot and killed Markeis McGlockton after McGlockton pushed him. Florida’s “stand your ground” law allows people to respond with deadly force with they believe lives are in danger. Protesters gathered at the scene yesterday, demanding justice for McGlockton. Meg Oliver reports.

A 10-year-old boy upset about his dad’s arrest was pinned to the ground by an Athens, Georgia officer, which was shown in a Facebook video that has quickly gained traction.

The video shows the young boy pinned to the ground with his arms held behind his back. The boy seemed scared when asking officers if he was going to jail while they continued to hold him on the ground.

The Athens-Clarke County Police Department released a statement after the video started circulating. They claim that the boy lunged at an officer while trying to get to his dad in one of the squad cars. They added that they were trying to de-escalate the situation by pinning the boy to the ground, and assured that “the child was not under arrest and that we would let him up if he would remain calm.”

An internal investigation into the situation has been ordered in the situation.

Jamar Hill, one of two men accused of gunning down Chinx in Brooklyn in 2015, appeared in court on Monday (July 16), where it was revealed that he’s working on a plea deal with prosecutors. Queens prosecutor Brian Hughes revealed in court that they are still working on a disposition.

Hill and Quincy Homere are accused of killing Chinx after he left a performance at Red Wolf nightclub in Brooklyn on May 17, 2015. The two men followed Chinx and opened fire on his new Porsche Panamera 4, hitting the rapper 15 times and his passenger, Antar Alziadi, twice in the back. Alziadi survived the shooting.

Hill is due back in court on September 12, and he, along with Homere, is facing 25 years to life if convicted of the murder.

The U.S. Justice Department has received “new information” in the murder investigation of Emmett Till, which they have decided to re-open.

This comes nearly 63-years after the brutal and racist murder of Till, who was captured and killed after he was accused of whistling at a white woman while visiting his family in Mississippi. The woman, Carolyn Bryant, later told author Timothy Tyson that her testimony about Till grabbing her around the waist and uttering obscenities was not true.

Bryant told Tyson, “Honestly, I just don’t remember. It was fifty years ago. You tell these stories for so long that they seem true, but that part is not true.”

Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam were identified as the killers by Till’s uncle, Mose Wright. The two men were found not guilty by an all-white jury in the closely watched case that helped spur the civil rights movement in the 1950s. The filmmakers of the PBS documentary, “The Murder of Emmett Till” spoke to other witnesses who say there were other accomplices involved in the murder.

An Ohio police officer was fired after a video surfaced of him stopping and illegally detaining a young black man who was dating his daughter during a traffic stop.

Former officer John Kovach Jr. violated many conduct of policy procedures during a traffic stop that involved 18-year-old Makai Coleman. The footage from the stop has gone viral because of what Kovach said to Coleman. Kovach’s daughter was in the car as well. The officer told Coleman to get out of the vehicle and that he is “going to jail” after pulling him over with no cause.

When Coleman asked why he was being detained, the officer told him “Have a seat in my car, we’ll make s**t up as we go.” During this entire incident, Kovach ignored an emergency call about a road rage incident.

The University of Florida came under fire over the weekend, after recordings taken during the school’s year-end commencement ceremony went viral amongst members of the public who grew outraged over the way they saw some of the Black graduates being treated.

Many of the roughly 10,000 fresh-faced alumni who crossed the Exactech Arena stage at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on Sunday (May 6), did so in style, with some stopping to pose for awkward selfies, others doing dance moves, skips, and flips, and one gentleman even kneeling down to propose to his girlfriend. There were also several instances in which the ceremony’s marshall got rough while moving to rush exuberant grads off – and in each of those cases, the students happened to be Black.

Myesha Senior had plans to celebrate before her Jamaican flag-waving family by doing a Usain Bolt dash pose, but the moment was ruined when she was suddenly manhandled by the marshall. “I tried to do it really fast. I saw the guy coming toward me … and when he pushed me, I almost fell, and I caught myself. But he pushed me so far that I passed the lady’s hand that I was supposed to shake,” she reportedly told The Washington Post of the moment.

Similar actions were taken against Nafeesah Attah, who was nearly knocked over while going to flash a Delta Sigma Theta hand gesture, and to Oliver Telusma, who wound up having to wrap his arms around the marshall to keep from tipping over due to the way he was rushing him along.

University President Kent Fuchs would later take to Twitter to apologize. He has also contacted each of the alum seen in the videos to express his regrets personally. Fuchs confirms that the marshall is being investigated.